DS 15 and A level English?

[Boedatives]

NC recently for this as it feels hugely disloyal......

DS is 15 and doing GCSEs next year. He is predicted all 9s - he's not a genius, just an all rounder at a very expensive school that spoon-feeds the boys, for want of a better word.

He is thinking of doing English A level ...... but he has read ONE book in the last year. I can't think of any before that.

It was Arsene Lupin by Maurice Leblanc, translated from French and it took him 7 months. He has never read anything by a classic english author - this is all apart from what they read and study in class. I mean for 'pleasure'.

By his age, I'd was deep into Thomas Hardy, all the Brontes, JD Salinger, Harper Lee.

I've given him short stories by HG Wells and a couple of PG Wodehouse schoolboy tales. If he doesn't look at them this summer, wibu to go into school before he makes a level choices and advise the teacher of his reading habits, or lack of? It seems ridiculous.

YABVU. It's not up to you.

YABU. It's his choice, nothing to do with you. Don't intervene, can you imagine how embarrassing and undermining that would be.

Let him finish his GCSE and decide what A levels he wants to do. Putting him down and scoffing at what he wants to do isn't helpful to anyone

If he gets all 9s he must be smart and working hard; you can’t get all 9s without that, whatever school you attend.

Why does he want to take Eng lit? What other subjects is he choosing? Has he had a look at the spec to see if he likes the texts and what the level of work is?

I don’t think you can diss him to the teacher like that. How has he got on this year with Macbeth and Dickens?

I would talk to him about it, try to encourage reading, take him to a play or two. Ask him if he realises how many books he needs to read. Eng lit is a great A level imho. What might he do his NEA on? Ask him to consider that too.

You seem quite dismissive of him.

Thanks. That's the thing, he loves drama and he even got a drama scholarship to the school.
He also wants to do history and I think maths.
He's done really well in English this year. Just seems madness to me that the teacher seems to have no idea about his lack of exposure to literature outside school.

He might be thinking of English Language A Level. You are talking about English Literature.

I did A-level English Lit and didn't read high brow books (or any others really) in my spare time, way too busy socialising. We did Equus and I loved it, try him with that perhaps, it's very short and definitely won't take 7 months to read. Definitely do not go in to school and tell his teachers on him.

You can reason with him about doing Eng lit - look at what books his school studies and see what he thinks - but let him make the final decision.

If he's getting all 9,s I'm sure hexwill cope🙄

hes not

1. Get him into Waterstones so he can choose for himself.

1. If at all possible, start with books that had movies based on them and watch those at the same time. Make it a bit of a family thing - treats, coziness, you get the picture. If finances allow, and there are shooting sites nearby, go for a trip.

1. Is there a chance he is aphantasic - is he able to visualise the story in his mind? If he isn't, then reading can be a total slog and he will never enjoy it.

At the end of the day it's his choice, but I do wonder why someone would choose to spend two years studying English Lit if they're not a book reader. What does he actually enjoy about the subject?

He will be ok. Presumably he reads the set texts for school English Lit and enjoys them? I teach Literature A Level and suspect many of my bright students don’t read much beyond the syllabus. They still enjoy it and do very well.

aphantasic is interesting. He says he has to reread a page a couple of times to see whats going on, or to take it in cognitively,

What he likes I think is the emotions and human interest - he can really understand feelings and is very sensitive. (unlike his mother). Hence being very talented at drama.

I think he also likes poetry

How would the teacher know? He’s getting 9s. We are not mind readers.

is he a hard worker generally? If so he might be willing to read for homework if not for pleasure. That said, if he doesn’t enjoy reading he’s going to hate English A Level so I do see why you might want to dissuade him. What’s his reasoning for wanting to do it?

What do you want him to take instead?

What about Drama A level? All the Drama Scholars did it at our school. If he’s doing History and Maths, English Lit isn’t necessary, unless he wanted English at uni! Drama would be fine. Cambridge Uni have a very good guide to A level choices. They list History and Maths as being great choices if you are not sure which subject. Fran’s isn’t listed so maybe swerve if he wants Cambridge but if he likes maths and history, why not economics or politics? Or a MFL?

Does he not have set texts for GCSE English?

I don't know which syllabus his school uses but I wonder how he will get on with the coursework if he does not read independently.

Fran’s?

I dont think he's being encouraged to do drama for some reason..... there were pretty tight restrictions on gcse choices too.

My son goes to a bog-standard comprehensive and started English Lit A level in year 10. I fully supported him doing it but it was a heck of a lot of work. However, it also gave great insight into the expectations of A-level study. We get his results in 2 weeks. We took the stance of nothing ventured nothing gained, but perhaps get the book list and then make a fully informed decision. I think if my son had his time again he wouldn’t have done it in parallel with his GCSEs.

My brother got a grade A at A level German and we never heard him speak a word of German!

You don't have to read lots to do literature. If he's great at understanding emotion and characters, then he'll do great studying the set books/texts.

He needs to go with the A Levels he is passionate about. If he has passion and the right work ethic (putting in the hours outside of lessons) then he will do well.

English teacher here. Not uncommon for (sorry to say it, but based on experience) boys to excel at GCSE English Literature without much effort and then come a cropper at A-Level. When he revised, did he reread his set texts multiple times? That would be the key question for me.

He has only done mocks so far, idk what he did tbh

can we find out ahead of making the choice what texts will be in the syllabus for his year?